Page:Ruskin - The Seven Lamps of Architecture.djvu/24

buildings, generally, the birds and flowers which are
singing and budding in the fields around them, we shall
have a school of English architecture. Not till then.

This general principle being understood, there is, I
think, nothing in the text which I may not leave in
the form in which it was originally written, without
further comment, except only the expression of doubt
(p. 218) as to the style which ought, at present, to be
consistently adopted by our architects. I have now
no doubt that the only style proper for modern northern
work, is the Northern Gothic of the thirteenth century,
as exemplified, in England, pre-eminently by the
cathedrals of Lincoln and Wells, and, in France, by
those of Paris, Amiens, Chartres, Rheims, and Bourges,
and by the transepts of that of Rouen.

I must here also deprecate an idea which is often
taken up by hasty readers of The Stones of Venice;
namely, that I suppose Venetian architecture the most
noble of the schools of Gothic. I have great respect
for Venetian Gothic, but only as one among many
early schools. My reason for devoting so much time
to Venice, was not that her architecture is the best in
existence, but that it exemplifies, in the smallest compass, the most interesting facts of architectural history.
The Gothic of Verona is far nobler than that of Venice;
and that of Florence nobler than that of Verona.
For our own immediate purposes that of Notre-Dame
of Paris is noblest of all; and the greatest service
which can at present be rendered to architecture, is
the careful delineation of the details of the cathedrals
above named, by means of photography. I would
particularly desire to direct the attention of amateur
photographers to this task; earnestly requesting them
to bear in mind that while a photograph of landscape is
merely an amusing toy, one of early architecture is a
precious historical document; and that this architecture should be taken, not merely when it presents
itself under picturesque general forms, but stone by